The billboard, promoting the phone number fans can use to purchase tickets, went up last Thursday, and can be seen by traffic flowing into the District, and is located a mere 6.5 miles from Nationals Park.

What should make this particularly funny for Orioles fans, and utterly infuriating for Nationals fans, is the many, many years (34) D.C. went without baseball.

Further possible insult is the repeated attempts by Orioles owner Peter Angelos to block Major League Baseball from placing a team in the nation’s capital, claiming the revenue he would lose from having a competing team 38 miles away (the eventual distance between Oriole Park and Nats Park).

If you find yourself questioning why the Orioles are allowed to place a billboard so close to D.C., the answer is Major League Baseball viewing the Baltimore-Washington corridor as a shared market. Essentially, either team has the green light to advertise anywhere between south central Pennsylvania, down through North Carolina, without infringing upon any other team’s market.

The Nationals, for instance, could conceivably place a giant Curly W across a billboard directly outside of Oriole Park, if they could secure the ad space and felt so impassioned.

The Orioles have confirmed purchase of the ad space in the photo above.

Baltimore talk radio host Glenn Younes has since responded to Nationals fans’ reaction to the billboard with an abundance of reason.

Chad Dukes of 106.7 The Fan offered his own harsh words about the billboard, Orioles fans and the city of Baltimore, and the confused allegiances of D.C. natives continuing to root for the Orioles.

“My personal opinion is, I don’t like the billboard, I wish it wasn’t up, but I understand it.

“What I’m more upset with, is how many people in this area – it’s almost like Stockholm Syndrome – it’s almost like they’ve been kidnapped by another franchise, and they refuse to see what their actions are doing. You’re taking money out of the pocket of your own franchise. You’re going to spend your money in another state and another city that looks on us with disdain.

“I wish I could give you all a week to do sports talk radio in Baltimore and listen to the calls you get, and listen to what those people say about us, and about this market, and about these teams, and how they’re booed and mocked and the vitriol. I don’t have any of that. The Ravens could win a thousand Super Bowls or be contracted right now, and it wouldn’t change my life at all. I just think that you would have some probably different perspective on whether or not you want to wear that stupid little bird hat, if you knew the way they feel about this area, and the people from this area.”

Due to the severity of some of the language, it’s probably best not to transcribe Dukes’ full thoughts on the matter, and just listen instead, paying particular attention to his comment on Peter Angelos and the Orioles organization as a whole.

Chad Dukes Lashes Out on Os Fans

Chris Lingebach is the head writer for TheFanDC.com. He hosts 'The Download' Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. on 106.7 The Fan.
Email story ideas to him: blueshorts1067@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @ChrisLingebach.